Player aids for Nemesis: Burma 44

A fast way to dive into the action…

Legion Wargames has released a new title from Kim Kanger, this time on Burma 1944 campaign. Being both a simulation and an action-filled game, Nemesis: Burma 44 is telling a war story the way a good movie would do. The plot is about the fierce fight between the British-American (with some Chinese and Commonwealth troops) and the Japanese armies to control the northern half of Burma between March and August 1944.

Operational and tactical decisions are deeply integrated in this game, since you are encouraged to relentlessly move and combat, hoping that the supply check won't come too soon. The fact is that the four phases of each turn — assault, attack, supply and reinforcement — are chosen randomly and independently of your opponent.

Two simple things have numerous impacts on the gameplay: the troop quality, which determines the mobility of units and their vulnerability towards supply, and the constraints of the ground (mountains and jungles), that favour light troops (mostly Japanese) and undermine motorized infantry and artillery (mostly British).

The game mechanisms are quite straigthforward, but a lot of small things count. To help you get familiar with or memorize the rules, I prepared the following player aids (2 pages each):
• a Sequence of Play Summary, which covers everything except the combat procedure;
• a Combat Procedure Summary;
• a Track Management Summary and Reminder, showing the various way the satisfaction/lament of the leaders of both sides may rise or drop, as well as the ups and downs of the Allied resources and the Chiang Kai-shek's willingness to fight;
• a Unit/Transporter Attributes and Behaviour Summary, that stresses the similarities and differences between the unit types: infantry (regular or light; motorized or not), special infantry units (Chindit, local rifles, INA, Yunnan Force…) artillery (motorized or not), tanks, engineers, air support and transporters (HQs, mules and trucks).

Lastly, a feature rare enough to be worthy of note, the game fits well with 4 players (2 by side), each phase being played by half of each army.